Loss & Death in new tank

This is a discussion on Loss & Death in new tank within the Freshwater and Tropical Fish forums, part of the Freshwater Fish and Aquariums category; -->
I had used two platy's to start the tank and they seemed fine....

Sorry for the delay.. I can't remember the name of the plants we have but they are three of the same, in a black basket like holder... Told that the kind I have will be good for the size tank I have... We will See.

So we have had the tank running with nothing it it for a week (except plants) took a water sample to the shop (just to double check the radings we took were good) and pleasing to now we have all perfect conditions bar one thing and thats the nitrate level is a little high and was suggested that as we have the plants in there it would be due to this...? We have taken the plants out for the last three days and nitrate levels have dropped and conditions are perfect.

We are looking at getting three Guppies to put in the tank to start and put the plants back in at the same time...?

Plants will not cause nitrates to be high, quite the opposite. Those of us with well-planted aquaria have low nitrate levels, usually below 10ppm and often zero. This makes no sense to me.

Having live plants in the tank when fish are introduced will help considerably. Plants require nitrogen, and their preferred source is ammonium. Fish produce ammonia which the plants can change into ammonium and then assimilate as nutrient. This obviously benefits the fish tremendously.

I went to the same store but had another boy look at my water results and was told by him (after I explained we had takenthe plants out etc etc)
He said that made no difference as (like Byron just said) it's not the plants and maybe from not putting enough water conditioner in. The boy explained to add another cap full of the aqua cycle solution I have and water should be good in 24hrs...!

Amazed how the same shop can say two completely opposite things. Think i'll stick to this forum in future...!

+1 on the fishless cycle as Johnny suggests when there is no plants in the tank. There is always a risk of what you encountered on your first attempt going the fish in the tank cycle route no matter what the LFS tells you. It is always tough losing fish especially on your first attempt. A test kit is definetly the way to go so you can track and log your info daily to watch the cycle go through its..umm..well.. cycle:)

I have recently added 9 zebra danio's in my 90g and they are awesome. They dart around and are very active and entertaining. As usual Byron is right (He was my main source of info as I learned this great hobby) that the Danio's prefer to be in larger shoals. They tend to chase each other around a bit that way which is fine. But if you have too few they might chase other types of fish instead and they are not as happy. I did some research online and a lot of info said they are aggresive fish. A few people on here told me they are not really aggresive but hyper. Put them in a large enough group and they will leave other fish alone and be happy chasing and darting around with their own kind. I can tell you that the latter is exactly what they did in my tank. I hope if you go back with danio's everything works out for you. Best of luck!!!